Remembering the effects of the fungus on the ants, he shivered as he recalled how they had become mindless little zombies once their respiratory system had taken in the spores of the fungus. As he dozed in and out, he thought to himself he was probably just being paranoid. There had been no adverse effects on any of their research team when they had studied the fungus. It had proved to only have an effect on a specific breed of ants in the rain forest. He closed his eyes and rested his head on the wall behind him, thoughts of ants crawling along while the fungus ate away at the soft tissue inside their bodies.
* * *
Day turned into evening, and the night’s darkness filled the motel room before Danny managed to rouse himself awake again. Slouched down on the floor next to the mini-fridge, his mouth hung open, drool oozing out of one corner. His tongue felt thick and his body was numb. From within the darkness he heard a man’s faint voice.
“What a fool, sitting there drooling all over himself.”
Danny raised his head and weakly mumbled, “Who said that? Who’s there?”
For a few moments nothing happened. Then, louder now, the voice became clear and sounded like it was right next to him.
“You can actually hear me?”
Danny, unsure of what was happening and who was in his motel room, tried to get up. His legs felt stiff and seemed to weigh a ton. As much as he told himself to get up and protect himself, his body just wouldn’t respond. He sat there, propped up against the wall, unable to move. Even his jaw, which was as sore as ever now, felt as though it was out of place. He couldn’t even bring himself to close his mouth and stop the drooling that was creating a large wet spot on his grey cotton t-shirt. For hours he sat there, his eyes burning, but not able to close them. They stayed open and fixed on the same spot on the opposing wall. A few times he felt a jabbing pain in his mouth, and could taste blood on his tongue. The man’s voice spoke to him, but Danny wasn’t able to reply back anymore.
The voice seemed to pester him, asking him questions. “What’s your name, kid? Why, I have been trying to talk to the living for a very long time now, and this is the first time someone has actually heard me. I’d love it if you’d at least tell me your name.”
The voice no longer felt like it was in the room with him. It felt like it was somehow in him. Danny took one last quiet breath as the botanist, and slowly his body transformed into the thing that he couldn’t struggle against any longer. Danny now sat against the wall of his own mind, hidden somewhere deep within.
* * *
The voice continued on speaking to Danny.
“You’ve been sitting there against that wall for hours, son. Why don’t you get up from that floor? You can’t I bet...What’s happened to you? Are you on your way to come join me in this quaint little world of mine?” The voice laughed loudly at his own remark.
“Your eyes are so glazed over. You know if I was really there with you I could probably get you back to yourself in no time. But you and I both know that isn’t about to happen, now is it?”
When the man on the floor didn’t reply, the voice continued on. “You should really get up off the floor. Maybe go for a walk outside. Taking in some of that fresh night air might do you some good.”
Danny awkwardly got up from off the floor and stood tall. He slowly walked to the door and turned the knob. He stepped outside of his motel room in only his gym pants and t shirt, the cold air passing by him. If he could feel anything, he would have noticed the cold concrete sidewalk on his bare feet, but he didn’t feel the slightest sensation.
The voice continued on, “Well don’t just stand there...Go on...Walk about...What I’d give to be alive again and to be able to walk even a few short steps. Walk down the parking lot and back, get some air in those lungs.”
Danny’s feet moved him forward, one clumsy step at a time. He rounded the edge of the parking lot and slowly made his way back to the open door of his motel room.
“Amazing, simply amazing,” the voice said. “How about you go back inside now and turn on the lights so we can find out more about you.”
The mindless man entered the room, closed the door and flicked on the light switch.
“Now turn the lights off and back on again.”
Danny obliged to the voice’s requests without any sign of hesitation.
“Marvellous...Just marvellous...I control you now...but how can that be?”
The voice drifted in and out as it questioned and tested the man until he was positive his voice was controlling the young man’s every move.
“We need to figure out what to do with you, my boy. Oh do I have plans in store for you,” said the voice as it crackled and laughed in what was left of Danny’s mind.
* * *
The first snowfall of the season had arrived in mid-November on Oakwood Island. A trail of footprints in the fresh snow carried with it drops of blood, leading into the forest. The footprints were made by Danny. He carried the dead body of a large coyote on his back. The animal’s gaping mouth left behind a trail of oozing yellow pus on the starch white snow. When he reached the edge of the forest, he made his way down to the ledge, where it stood out over the cold, angry sea. He lifted the body of the wild animal, and threw it down onto the large rocks. It thumped against the pile of dead rotting animals that had accumulated there over the past month. Danny turned and started the walk back through the field and into the forest. The experiment had failed again. He was to find another subject before night fell.
Overhead, a large crow spread its wings and cast a large shadow on the creature that had once been named Danny.
* * *
The January morning air was cold and crisp. Danny slowly drove down Water Street. The sun had not yet risen; it was still dark enough to provide cover but bright enough to see what he now needed to find. He passed a row of apartment buildings and a convenience store. The street was quiet, and he was about to go on to the next street when he saw her coming towards his van. She walked fast, her steps steady. Danny turned the dark blue van around in one of the driveways and pulled up alongside the young woman, matching her pace. When she saw this, she approached the van, and stood over the side of the curb. He rolled down the passenger side window and turning in his seat he spoke to the young woman in a voice that sounded unlike his own.
“Sorry miss, I know it’s a pretty cold day and you look like you’re in a rush, so I won’t keep you for long.” The name that was embroidered on her white winter coat read “Maggie”. She bent at the waist and crossed her arms on the passenger side door.
“That’s alright,” she said. “What can I help you with?” The woman didn’t have time to utter a single sound as he grabbed her and pulled her into his van. After months of experiments, the thing that controlled Danny’s body knew it was closing in on a breakthrough. It was all finally coming together and the voice that lived in Danny’s mind would be able to seek his revenge on those who had wronged him once and for all. They were ready for her now. The van drove on towards the outskirts of town, to the trailer home that silently stood waiting for his return.
Outside the trailer, at the end of the driveway, was an old wooden mailbox. On it stood and cawed a large black crow, feathers as dark as midnight skies. It waited patiently for the return of the beast, while the carcasses inside the trailer quietly decomposed, oozing out different shades of thick yellow pus.
Chapter 7
Dr. Richard P. Edwards
May 1981
The evening wind carried with it the lingering scent of freshly cut lawn, the first sign of the spring season on the Oakwood Island hospital grounds. All along the parking lot edges, there were newly planted shrubs and rose bushes. From there sprouted three walkways that led to the hospital main entrance and continued on to wrap itself around the building, towards the employee entrance on the right hand side and the delivery bays on the left. Like most of the
town-funded properties on Oakwood Island, the grounds had the distinct weeping willow trees adorning the yard, planted as such to create natural shade for the patients, visitors and staff of the hospital. During the hot summer days this shade would be refreshing and welcomed.
On this cool Spring evening however, the shadows that danced in the willow’s flowing tendrils sought nothing but the wind to catch itself onto and sway back and forth, caressing the greening blanket spread out before it. The night stars winked dimly to the sleeping world below from their eternal spot in the sky. They shone down with the moonlight, watching with close attention the on goings of the small community on this late night in nineteen-eighty-one.
The hospital was a medium-sized building with four floors and a psychiatric wing, together containing just over sixty beds. Most rooms were dark at this midnight hour; the patients who had residency overnight had been fast asleep for awhile. From outside, the hospital remained quiet, with just the soft wind speaking a language of ages that everyone heard but which nobody interpreted. If anyone had been able to, they might have been saddened to hear of the events that were about to take form over the next several weeks. It was on this night, in this hospital, that the seeds of the fate of Oakwood were planted by an unseen evil.
* * *
As the wind caressed the bricked walls of the old hospital, it failed to penetrate the fortified hallways and rooms inside. Up on the third floor, the on-duty physician, Doctor Richard P. Edwards, was standing bedside in a dimly lit hospital room. In the bed was a bald and pale George Hatchet. He had been in the doctor’s care since his return from the cancer treatment facility on the mainland. His cancer was terminal, and after several months of treatments, it was deemed best that George return to the care of his family doctor to try and live the last of his months close to his family and friends on the island.
The doctor was speaking in a low voice, discussing various options of pain management with his patient. Out in the brightness of the hospital hallway, a few short steps away, was the nurses station. The two nurses were discussing Dr. Edwards private affairs, and sharing stories about his loveless marriage to Peggy Sue. Tina and Harriett, sitting next to each other in matching white scrubs, kept their voices low and hushed, for they had seen the Doctor entering the room a short while prior. Harriett spoke mostly, with Tina interjecting her own interpretations of the doctor’s love life. She didn’t know that Harriett had a better understanding of his personal affairs through her own conversations and one-on-one time with him. Harriett knew she had to keep that part a secret, but this didn’t stop her from gossiping about the sad state of affairs that the doctor and his trophy wife Peggy Sue called a marriage. Harriett felt empowered holding this secret that only she and the doctor held. It made her feel like a teenager again.
“That Peggy Sue has more leg than both of us combined,” Tina spoke in a hushed whisper. “It’s no wonder he married her. I bet she was all over him when they met in med school. She knew what she was doing when she took those vows.”
Harriett glanced across the hallway. The doctor was still standing near the bed talking to George. She turned to face Tina and replied. “There’s no way he married her for love. I mean seriously? With those legs and those implants, he got what he wanted as much as she did. It was an arranged marriage, a transaction of sorts. He forked out the dough while she played the role of the trophy wife. Love had nothing to do with it.”
Harriett picked up some files that she had just finished working on and walked over to the filing cabinet behind her. When she sat back down, Tina turned towards her and said, “Oh I’m sure they thought they were in love when they got married. I mean the idea of love at such a young age is so romantic. She used to be the perfect example of a good housewife. She never complained about his long hours at work here.
“But I think now she doesn’t complain ‘cause it gives her more time to run around playing doctor with someone else. I heard from Rita at the salon that she goes in twice a month now for her southern waxing, if ya catch my drift.”
Harriett and Tina both burst out laughing at this last comment. They looked towards the room where the doctor was, worried their laughter had carried across the hall and into the quiet room. The doctor had turned towards the doorway, his head cocked to the side, peering at the nurses. He turned towards his patient again and placed his chart back on the clipboard at the foot of his bed. The nurses collected themselves and put on a serious face as the doctor stepped out into the stark white brightness of the hallway. His footsteps echoed all the way down the hall and back to the nurses station.
Tina busied her hands with some paperwork that was on the desk in front of her, while Harriett looked directly at the approaching doctor, her brown eyes staring at him as he arrived directly in front of the desk. His face had a stern look of disapproval as he began speaking to the nurses.
“Please tell me that your outbursts are quite done for the rest of your shifts?”
Tina nodded.
Harriett smiled at the doctor, her eyes now lavishing his, saying, “Of course. We didn’t mean any harm. Just trying to stay awake.”
Dr. Edwards leaned in a bit closer and with his eyes peering into Harriett’s he said, “I need some help with a few case notes. It’s a slow night. Tina can manage here alone for a little while. Follow me.”
With that said, the doctor turned and began walking down the long corridor towards his private office. Harriett glanced at Tina from the corner of her eye as she got up and followed the doctor. She avoided eye contact with her, knowing all too well she couldn’t hide the blushing that was now spreading across her cheeks. Tina watched as Harriett’s small frame went past the nurses desk and down the hall, following the doctor from close behind. Her white uniform blended in with the white painted corridors, her feet quietly scurrying behind the loud, echoing of the doctor’s thick and solid steps. They both disappeared behind his office door, followed by a loud clicking sound as the lock was put in place. Tina rolled her eyes and continued on with her paperwork.
* * *
At the same moment, across town, there sat a couple kissing passionately at the lookout point on Ocean’s Edge Road. Peggy Sue Edwards looked into Ted Bryerson’s eyes and felt a rush of exhilaration pass through her body. She had never felt so alive before she had started seeing Ted. His muscular body, the strong hands that handled her and the passionate lovemaking he’d given her over the past few weeks had Peggy Sue feeling like a teenager again.
She kissed him once more and returned to her Lincoln as he got into his Jeep. Ted waved goodbye to her as she pulled away from the parkway and headed out to the road, a few hundred yards away. Ted sat in his Jeep for a while, staring out into the dark ocean, the moon casting down its glow onto the rhythmic ballad of the waves. He knew what he was doing was wrong, and something in his gut told him that he had to end it, and soon. He debated his options, thinking about Peggy Sue and how fun she had been the past few weeks. Ted sat in silence for a while, the waves lulling his thoughts, back and forth, the good and the bad, which way would he choose to go? He put the Jeep into reverse and spun the tires as he sped away from the lookout.
* * *
Doctor Edwards buttoned up his shirt again while Harriett pulled on her scrubs. As he sat down in his large leather chair behind his mahogany desk, Harriett turned to face him and smiled, her face flush. The doctor raised his hand from the desk, waved her away, and with that she left his office, closing the door behind her. His eyes glanced to the picture of Peggy Sue that sat on his desk. He loved this picture of his wife in her tennis outfit. Her body had always been perfect, even through the years she had stayed in shape and always looked her best.
He knew she was unhappy in their marriage. He had turned a blind eye to the affair she’d recently started with the local mechanic. He had seen both their cars at the lookout point on several occasions. It came as no shock to him, as they had had no rea
l intimacy since the first few years of their marriage. Until tonight he had figured the affair would be short lasted and that Peggy Sue would break it off, eventually coming to her senses. She had held a different look in her eyes in recent weeks. He would catch her gazing off, daydreaming with the most stupid look on her face, her eyes filled with apparent lust and passion for her lover. Tonight he had recognized this same look in Harriett’s eyes after he had his way with her. He knew he had to do something about his wife’s affair.
Not a brave man, by any means, the doctor was but five foot four inches tall, and a whole of one hundred and fifty pounds. This was no match to Ted, the jock that was just shy of six feet tall and two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle. The doctor smiled though, as where Ted outweighed him in size and muscles, so did Richard outweigh him in smarts.
He got up from the leather chair, the office only lit by a lamp on his desk. He walked over to the medicine cabinets on the far wall of his office. Indeed, he would have to take care of this himself, he thought as he opened the glass cabinet door. He reached for a small infusion vial. He would not need a syringe for this bottle however, only the clear liquid drug inside. The plan he was setting into motion had taken but a moment to devise, but would need careful execution.
Doctor Edwards placed the vial inside his briefcase that was sitting open on his desk. He closed the case and locked it as a smile spread across his face. His plan would indeed bring a message to Peggy Sue, and most importantly to Ted Bryerson.
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